Deputy collector faces graft charge in eviction case

The Anti-Corruption Bureau has filed an FIR against a deputy collector, who also functions as the competent authority to decide rent law disputes, and two lawyers for being allegedly involved in bribery.

| TNN | Mar 6, 2013, 01.11 AM IST

MUMBAI: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has filed an FIR against a deputy collector, who also functions as the competent authority to decide rent law disputes, and two lawyers for being allegedly involved in bribery. Ujjwala Gurakhe and advocates Uday Desai and Datta Mane allegedly sought and accepted "half of a Rs 5 lakh bribe to influence an eviction case" involving a prime property in Colaba.

The FIR was lodged after ACB officials allegedly recorded conversations with a hidden recorder taped to the complainant Prem Sood, 66, himself a lawyer. A day after filing the FIR on February 11, the ACB laid a trap, which failed. Sood, in a letter to the CBI, said he suspected that someone leaked information about the trap as the two lawyers did not show up to meet him and stopped taking his calls. They were allegedly to meet him at Old Custom House and take him to Gurakhe, to whom he was to hand over the remaining Rs 2.5 lakh. The money was allegedly demanded by Gurakhe to pass orders favourable to Sood.

The FIR charges the trio with offences under Section 8 (accepting bribes by corrupt or illegal means to influence a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 10 (punishing the public servant who abets such an offence). Punishment can range from six months to five years in jail.

On Monday, Gurakhe, who said she is to retire this June, denied all allegations when TOI met her at Old Custom House. Gurakhe presides over quasi-judicial proceedings and has the power to evict an occupant after the license period expires. She said, "As a judge, why should I make any such demand? I haven't. So many lawyers know me as a judge. I meet lawyers who come to my office and I'm polite to them but I do not reveal what orders I'm going to pass. I pass orders on merits alone."

Desai too denied having anything to do with the case. He said, "It's a conspiracy hatched by others in our profession. I never demanded a penny from anyone." Advocate Mane did not respond to calls or text messages.

In the FIR, Sood said he met Mane for legal work in his office last August and when Mane learnt he had a dispute with his landlord he offered to help him meet Gurakhe as "Mane said he and Desai knew her personally". Sood refused.

The landlord of Naju Mansion, Wodehouse Road, had filed an eviction application under Section 24 of the Rent Act against Sood's wife, in whose name a flat has stood since 1999. She paid Rs 30 lakh for a "valid agreement", said Sood, her power-of-attorney holder.

He had lost a case in the civil court over the premises and says this news reached Gurakhe. He said Mane and Desai contacted him last October saying anything could go wrong with his case and he may get evicted, so he "reluctantly" agreed to meet them. Sood said he met Gurakhe in her Old Custom House office where she allegedly asked him to pay Rs 2.5 lakh to Desai and Mane and the remaining when the order was passed in his favour. She asked him to file a plea questioning the competent authority's jurisdiction. Sood said he paid the money in October.

Sood told the ACB on January 28 that he was disheartened that, as a lawyer, he paid a bribe and didn't want to pay the remaining amount. The ACB took steps to "verify the complaint" by sending Sood with panchas to meet the same lawyers. The ACB says it recorded a conversation about Rs 2.5 lakh being paid and that Sood went with Desai to Gurakhe's office on February 11, where Desai allegedly asked for the remaining amount. Sood said he could organize it the next day. A trap failed the next day.

Gurakhe on Monday said, "Yes, Sood had come to my office, but I never asked him for money. In fact, he told me to do yoga for my blood pressure problem." She also denied asking him to file a plea questioning her jurisdiction. On Tuesday, Gurakhe ruled against the plea.

PROPERTY DISPUTE: ALLEGATIONS FLY

2008: A landlord files an eviction case against the occupant of a flat in Naju Mansion, Wodehouse Road, Colaba

Jan 2013: The occupant, Prem Sood, files a complaint with the ACB alleging that a bribe of Rs 5 lakh has been demanded. He says Rs 2.5 lakh was already paid in October to two lawyers who are the alleged middlemen of deputy collector Ujjwala Gurakhe, the person deciding the case

Feb 12: A trap laid by the ACB, allegedly to nab the accused red-handed accepting the second instalment of the bribe, fails

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